


Pick Me Up

by Sephorlou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Frat Boy Harry, Louis in Glasses, M/M, Pickup Lines, Smart Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sephorlou/pseuds/Sephorlou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry likes using pickup lines and Louis is not impressed</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pick Me Up

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little one shot I wrote awhile ago that I decided to post

There’s a test scheduled tomorrow covering command, Traditional, and Market economies and an essay due midnight the following day over voting patterns in an office election, but here Louis is leaning against the wall next to a potted plant at a party. He feels awkward and out of place to say the least.

 

It’s not like he wanted to show but Zayn made a bet with him -if he got a higher mark on his contemporary piece than Louis did on his critical thinking thesis then Louis would show and Zayn managed to do it, by one fucking percent.

 

Zayn disappeared within the throng of people a quarter after they arrived leaving Louis alone in the middle of the kitchen and okay, he’s not socially inept but he doesn’t really like interacting with others, especially idiots in his age group (not including Zayn -except for right now when he left him- so fuck Zayn).

 

The punch is undoubtedly spiked with cheap liquor -a headache he can’t afford to nurse in the morning- and the tap water is warm. He ended up just fishing a Capri Sun out from the fridge and now he’s casually resting against a wall in the living room, scrolling through his twitter feed.

 

"Louis?" When he looks up from his phone screen he sees Niall standing there with his snapback almost tumbling off his head and a red solo cup in his hand filled to the brim with suspicious looking punch. Niall is a friend of Zayn’s, someone he doesn’t normally talk to and someone Louis finds extremely irritating but alright at the same time.

 

"What are you doing here?"

 

"Zayn pulled me along. Asshole evaporated into thin air," Louis would have felt less tactless had Zayn stuck around and talked with him instead of leaving him to hole up in a corner next to a house plant.

 

Niall laughs, “saw him outback by the fire pit.”

The first thing Louis wants to ask is how they got a fire going in the backyard of some dilapidated frat house without the fire department called to extinguish it and the dean there to yell about safety standards, because honestly who trusts drunk teenagers to take care of this kind of shit? Instead he stands, half hoping Zayn fell in and half hoping he didn’t considering Zayn is his ride and has the house keys in his pocket.

 

A hand wraps around his wrist, Niall, tugging him back and telling him to wait. From here, even with the tacky strobe lights that probably came from the party store down the road, Louis can see the faint glow of a fire through the reflection of the sliding glass door. And if he squints hard enough through the frame of his glasses and uses his imagination he can almost see Zayn. Zayn with his knack for ditching Louis-this isn’t the first time it’s happened- and their keys to the dorm. At this point Louis  wants to go home and curl up on his couch and read something by Frieden or Ikenberry with Pulp Fiction faintly buzzing in the background.

 

Right now though Niall is keeping him from that and a warm bed, away from stupid over sized shrubs and loud, irritating club music that vibrated both his drink and himself.

 

"Zayn," Niall says although it’s more like shouting, "is with Perrie. He actually got up the nerve to strike up a conversation and they’re doing pretty well."

 

As heartless as Louis thinks he is he isn’t that heartless. He’s seen the way Zayn’s eyes follow Perrie whenever they’re crossing the courtyard, all the art projects dedicated to her even when Zayn insists that it’s a coincidence. He’s not the type of person to wear his heart on his sleeve but with Perrie he wears it on his forehead.

And it’s not like Louis hasn’t been pushing Zayn for months to talk to Perrie, at least say ‘excuse me’ when he nearly bumps into her because he’s not paying attention to anything other than her.

 

Louis swears under his breath because he may not be a normal twenty year old red blooded male but he believes in the ‘Bro Code’ and Zayn would probably ignore them in their own room if he fucked this up.

 

"Shit," Louis groans resting his shoulders back on the wall, tossing his juice carton on the ground with as much ferocity he can, although it more or less floats to the carpet.

"Don’t worry I’ll stay and keep you company."

 

It doesn’t really comfort Louis but when Melissa happens to walk by in a skirt, Niall mindlessly follows forgetting Louis’ existence, and that somehow makes it worse knowing he’s alone…again.

 

He doesn’t try calling him back though and he’s seriously contemplating leaving and just sleeping on the floor outside of their room, although now he’s wondering if Zayn might even come home or head back to Perrie’s place. He’d rather make himself a bed in the hallway than both of them coming back to his dorm and having to bury his head deep in his sofa cushions to block out any disturbing noises.

 

Through the cheers, music, and laughter Louis hears a low whistle, and at first he doesn’t look up from where he’s gone back to his Twitter feed because there’s no way it could be directed towards him. Except he hears it a second time, sounding a lot closer, and when he does turn his gaze up there’s a guy there that wasn’t there before and he’s staring, whistling at him.

 

The first thing Louis notices is how attractive he is because holy shit he’s hot. Wearing an orange t-shirt with white Greek letters and a white snapback turned backwards over his curls. Definitely good looking but the way he’s tipping his drink back, smirking around the lip of a bottle Louis guesses he found lying around, with a look in his eye and the look he’s casting Louis, and of course the fucking whistling.

Typical asshole. Typical frat boy.

 

"What’s your name?" His voice is low and husky and fuck it makes Louis weak at the knees and pissed at the same time, like this guys knows the effect he has over Louis and thinks that he’ll have Louis wrapped around his finger -or wrapped around him- and even if it’s true it still annoys him.

 

Louis turns his face away opting to watch Niall awkwardly make an ass of himself in front of Melissa trying to do a keg stand, nearly falling over. There’s a low hum next to his ear, close enough to scare the shit out of him.

 

"What the fuck?"

 

The corner of frat boy’s mouth draws up, an unfathomably deep dimple denting his cheek. It disgusts Louis, leaning away and shooting him a sharp glare, if looks could kill then he wouldn’t have to deal with this.

 

"You never gave me an answer beautiful."

 

"Do you use that on everyone you try to pick up?" Louis sneers, slipping his phone into his pocket in case he had to make any kind of quick escape that included jumping over a fence or out a window.

 

"Just the ones hiding behind glasses and talking to house plants. I’m Harry."

 

"And I don’t care." Louis is ready to say fuck it and walk but frat -Harry- rests his hand palm flat against the wall right in front of Louis’ face, almost knocking his frames off. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Louis really wants to punch him in the dick.

Harry blocks his path and brushes his fingertips along Louis’ arm and even through his sweater Louis can feel his skin breaking out into goosebumps, and his resolve breaking.

 

"Did it hurt?"

 

What? “What?”

 

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

 

"No but i scraped my knees crawling out of hell." Harry looks taken aback, as if this is the first time Harry’s ever been shot down, and Louis takes the opportunity to escape, the front door wide open for him to walk of. He kicks some bottles and cans out of his pathway, and whatever headache he’d been building up in his head and between his temples disappears. Maybe he can get someone to let him into the lounge and he can continue reading the Origins of Political Order on his phone and pull the sleeves of his sweater over his fingers to keep somewhat warm.

 

Fuck this, his entire night is ruined and he has a test tomorrow but all of his things are locked away upstairs. He’s never gotten a mark lower than an A, and this might be the first time he gets anything worse maybe even fails. Now he regrets not having punch or a bottle or whatever.

 

"Hey! Wait up!" And seriously he hears fucking whistling from behind him and when he looks over his shoulder it’s Harry only he doesn’t have anything in his hands or a hat on his head but he’s still wearing that cocky smirk.

 

Louis is really thinking about running. The only thing that keeps him from doing so i his pride and how that would look if he did. That doesn’t stop him from speeding up his step until he’s just shy of jogging.

 

Harry still manages to catch him, grasping his elbow and Louis shakes his hand off decidedly facing him. If this is the only way he’s going to get rid of him then he’ll give him five minutes.

 

"Have I seen you someplace before?"

 

Not this again, Louis sighs.

 

"Yeah I’m the receptionist at the STI clinic."

 

Harry pouts and Louis tries not to think about biting into his bottom lip and soothing the teeth marks with his tongue. He pushes that thought to the back of his mind and makes himself not touch it.

 

"If I could rearrange the alphabet I’d put U and I together." Every time Louis wonders why again he’s turning down Harry’s advances he hears another stupid pickup line and remembers all over again. Louis likes intelligence, he’s a political science major he needs a conversation with someone more on his level, not someone trying to get him in bed.

 

"It’s great N and O are already together then."

 

This time Harry laughs and pokes his chest, Louis tries not to be weirded out by that. “You’re witty, I like that. Would you be opposed to taking a walk around campus?”

 

He’s about to say no, figures it’s probably for the best, but he has no room to go back to and he’s going to fail anyways so fuck it. The worst thing that can happen is that he has to knee Harry in the balls and run off.

 

Besides Harry looks hopeful, batting his curlicue eyelashes and Louis feels a twist in his gut, something he hasn’t felt since Liam. Coincidentally Liam had been a frat boy himself with more muscles than IQ points but he could bench Louis and that had been hot enough to reel Louis in, in the first place.

 

"Just once around the courtyard."

 

Harry grins like he’s won something, starting a slow pace down the pathway. They talk, Harry throws in a few lines like ‘You must be a broom because you swept me off my feet’ or ‘Do you have a map? Because I got lost in your eyes’ most of which get a ‘fuck you’ or ‘fuck off.’

 

At this point though Louis’ kind of flirting back, even though he’s desperately been trying not to. Getting past the looks and some of the bullshit lines, Harry’s a decent guy and -surprisingly- pretty smart. At least Louis can carry on a proper conversation whether it’s about politics or something more random like pop culture.

 

Harry -again surprisingly- is studying to be an engineer he learns and Harry isn’t that surprised Louis is majoring in Poli-Sci.

 

Louis’ gotten so invested he doesn’t realize they’ve gone four times around the courtyard instead of once, not that he cares anymore. Whatever worries he had earlier are gone and now all he sees are dimples.

 

It’s going really well -better than any discussion Louis’ had with a guy in a long while- and he’s usually a really observant person but he’s so distracted that he doesn’t see a rock along the footpath until it’s too late and the lace of his sneakers catch onto it his hand’s flying out and tangling with Harry’s fingers.

 

That’s a mistake.

 

He should have seen this coming, he’s taken enough science courses to know by now, but the moment he grapples onto Harry they both fall over, Harry landing hard on top of him until they’re a mess of limbs and body parts.

 

"Shit are you okay?" Harry looks concerned even though Louis can see that the left knee of his skinny jeans is torn open from where it scraped along the concrete.

 

"M fine thanks for asking."

 

Harry’s frown slowly turns into a grin. “You have a band aid?”

 

"No why?" It’s not like Louis just carries a handful in his pocket.

 

"I think I scraped my knee falling for you."

  
Louis groans, “shut the fuck up Harry.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr at Sephorlou, I write a lot


End file.
